New Delhi, Aug. 18 -- On India's 79th Independence Day this August 15th, the Union Finance Ministry announced that it plans to simplify and rationalise the existing goods and services tax (GST) regime. The Centre said its proposed reforms are aimed at simplifying tax structure into two slabs: 'standard' and 'merit', with the special rates being imposed "only on a select few items".

This was further confirmed and hailed by Prime Minister Narendra Modi during his speech at the Red Fort. On August 17, he added that the government has circulated the draft GST reforms among states and sought their cooperation to implement the proposal before Diwali.

The ministry added that it has sent the recommendations to the Group of Ministers (GoM) for f...